interview by Joseph Roberts

Nadine (right) with The Police at Tokyo station.

Nadine Barner has been a macrobiotic chef, teacher and health counsellor for the past 20 years. She is a graduate of the Kushi Institute in Massachusetts and has studied widely with many western teachers. In addition to practicing macrobiotics in California, she travels and teaches healthcare, diagnosis and cooking to individual households as well as various celebrities. For the past 11 months, she has worked exclusively as Sting’s personal chef, on a world tour with the band The Police. Visit nadinebarner.com

Macrobiotics derives from the Greek “macro” (large, long) and “bios” (life). It is a dietary regimen involving eating grains as a staple food supplemented with other local foodstuffs such as vegetables and beans, and avoiding the use of highly processed or refined foods. Macrobiotics also recommends against overeating and requires that food be chewed thoroughly before swallowing.

Joseph Roberts: In your opinion, what is getting in the way of people becoming more aware and realizing what is healthy and what is unhealthy?

Nadine Barner: That’s a loaded question. We’re not taught in society to be responsible for ourselves. What we learn through macrobiotics and oriental medicine is first to be responsible and to understand that we are part of nature. Most of the western world is trying to overtake nature, to box and control and suppress it, to do everything without understanding that we are part of nature and there are some very specific rules in the universe. But we just don’t want to hear it.

Nadine with two executive chefs at one of the world's largest hotels, the Venetian Macao-Resort-Hotel, in China.

For over 20 years, I’ve acquired an understanding that comes from your and my ancestors. It’s very old with some simple rules. But in order to apply those rules, I have to stop and think and apply them. I don’t have to talk or write; I have to do them. You have to do it. You have to sit down for breakfast between seven and nine in the morning because that’s the best time for the stomach. You have to cook supper. You have to chew well because complex carbohydrates are actually processed in the mouth, not in the stomach as proteins and fats are. You have to understand that and make yourself sit down. You have to stop running around for money, for goods and fortune. You have to reset the body clock. Once you’ve done this, everything starts to fall into place. Your blood changes – the white blood cells in 10 days, the red in 120 – in four months. Right now, you’re sitting in front of me with the food you’ve been eating with the last four months. How does it smell? People don’t want to think of this.

In order to feel grounded, you also have to eat local and organic as much as possible. We really get grounded from the vegetables we eat and the simplest food has always been the best. Our grandfathers ate very traditional food, the same over and over again.

JR: How does what we eat change us as we age?

NB: We shrink. There’s a time for everything, as the Bible says. We don’t even want to think of this. We push our bodies.

JR: Can you give me a couple of examples in the difference between, say, 20 and 50 years of age?

NB: After menopause, the estrogen is lower and testosterone is higher. If I continue to eat more protein and more baked, hot foods, I’m going to be more dissatisfied with life.

JR: So your preferable foods would be whole foods, grains and lighter food?

NB: It depends on your condition and what you do. Traditionally, people ate according to what they were doing. But always you have to chew and people don’t take the time. Chewing is assimilation. I don’t know if you’ve seen a picture of the intestines, but they’re very similar to the brain. If one doesn’t work, the other doesn’t either.

JR: Let’s talk about chewing, digestion and assimilation. If one doesn’t work, you’re not going to be healthy?

NB: It depends on your constitution. For example, look at the size of your ears and mine. I’m very weak. The ears, in oriental medicine, are the constitution so very large ears mean a strong constitution.

JR: I have large ears.

NB: Yes, so you can get away with murder. Constitution dictates what we can do. People with a strong constitution can get away with so much they often abuse it. The constitution is inherited from our grandparents. So it’s more than just the food.

Another thing is people expect everything to be pre-digested for them because the brain doesn’t work. This is not really pre-digested information. You have to think about it, apply it, put it together. Unfortunately we’re in an age where everything has to be chewed for people, and then people chew it and throw it away.

JR: I had a conversation today with someone concerned about their weight. Why do some people eat too much?

NB: Because they can’t stop themselves. The way the universe works – you have the morning, noon, afternoon, evening and night. In oriental medicine, the energy of the morning that goes with the liver and gall bladder is upward moving. This is what we call yin energy. At noon the energy is completely outwards and very strong. Around 3 o’clock, the energy goes down and is heavier. So we eat differently at different times.

JR: So if the morning is yin, we should eat yin foods?

NB: Yes, you match the energy. That’s what nature is all about.

JR: What about people who don’t go to sleep until one or two in the morning?

NB: Their hormones are fucked up; excuse my French, but this is what happens. But for some people it has a lot to do with the way they were born. Birth has an impact, overall, on the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems. The way you eat is going to make your mind. Nothing can change the stagnations you have inside of you. Once the body is stagnated, the mind is also stagnated. Always go back to this.

The more you chew, the more you actually break down the food to the smallest particle so you can assimilate it. The pancreas is basically where all the complex carbohydrates go, digested in the mouth, while protein and fat are digested in the stomach. So if you don’t chew them, you by-pass the digestion. This is why people who switch to macrobiotics and don’t chew are always hungry. So then they say, “It doesn’t work for me” because they don’t understand. To chew is very difficult. You have to make time for yourself.

JR: Rather than just biting and gulping.

NB: You need to break the food down and the more you chew, the sweeter it becomes. And the sicker you are, the more you have to chew.

JR: After we chew and the enzymes in our mouths go into the food, where does it go then?

NB: It goes into the stomach and you have the bile that comes from the gall bladder and other enzymes from the spleen and pancreas. Then it basically gets digested in the small intestine. It goes to the pancreas and the spleen, after which all the enzymes mix together. The digestive system actually starts very slowly; it takes a number of hours.

JR: With assimilation, food travels first to the small intestine, the large intestine, the colon and then gets eliminated.

NB: Right. So in all that time you have the blood flow through the body that takes the nourishment from the spleen and the pancreas and sends it pretty much throughout the body, again depending on what you assimilate in your small intestine and how much you chew your food and break it down to the smallest particle to assimilate the glucose and all the nutrients and vitamins. So you need a variety of food.

JR: I eat a lot of fish and vegetables and Chinese cooked foods in restaurants.

NB: They use too much oil. Dairy and oil and too much fruit are mucous-forming. I don’t eat any dairy. If you haven’t been cooking, you’re dependent on others, even if it’s organic food. That’s better, but it’s the buzzword of the last five years because it makes money and makes everybody feel good. I feel better, but what is important is balance.

A book you should get is The China Study by Colin Campbell. He says it boils down to three things: breakfast, lunch and dinner. But we don’t want to look at this. It’s the hardest thing I have with all my clients – to make them sit and eat at a regular time.

JR: What happens when you go without eating for a long time? Sometimes I’m too busy to eat and then I crash.

NB: It is the hardest thing for some people to really take care of themselves. We are wedded to our habits. What comes first? Is it the food or your habits? Chicken or egg? In the last 10 years, I’ve really refined what I do. I’ve let go of money, a house and success because I wanted to become more Zen. But it was very important for me to be at peace with myself and to feel good – not only my physical health but also emotionally and spiritually.

JR: How do relationships affect the yin and yang?

NB: The same way. You’re going to pick what you know according to your condition. Sex is the same thing.

JR: I think it’s very healing for the body, but I’m also thinking too much is not a good thing. Is there a preferable way?

NB: There’s no preferable way. Here we have woman energy, which comes from the earth and rises, while man’s energy comes from the heaven and moves downward. Now, if we have a woman eat bacon, which moves energy downward, her sexual energy will decrease. If a man eats too much upward energy like fruit, sugar, coffee and protein, the sexual drive is going to be very fast but not sustainable. We haven’t understood that the way we eat determines how healthy our sexual drive is. I’ve become more sensitive as I’ve aged and eaten this way. My skin is more sensitive. I get aroused very rapidly. The energy of the woman is more in the morning, while a man is more at night.

JR: So how do they find common ground?

NB: Well, this is why you give chocolate or a bit of alcohol to a woman, just to kind of smooth her energy down a bit. Touching also brings the energy down. Also women are more practical, so you appeal to her mind, make love with words. Men are more physical and visual, so it’s also part of the knowledge that you understand.

JR: Can’t sex deplete the energy?

NB: That’s a problem with the bladder. It’s the kidney energy, basically.

JR: What happens when you have too much food?

NB: The more you eat, the more you ejaculate. Semen, first of all, is protein.

JR: So eating a lot of protein is good to balance you off if you’re having a lot of sex?

NB: No. Basically, if you go to a monastery you’ll find they eat very little protein because they don’t want to be sexually aroused. So to calm your sexual drive, you eat more cold tofu, less animal protein, less beans.

JR: So food and sex have something in common. What about movement?

NB: The more yang food you eat, the less movement you have. Vegetables are more flexible; the more vegetable quality, the more flexible you are. It’s very simple.

JR: What about actually bringing movement into your life?

NB: It still starts with food. Three weeks on the diet and everything changes. Food comes first. Breakfast, lunch and dinner.

JR: What would be the highest goal in macrobiotics?

NB: Every goal is different for everybody – To feel good. To look good.

JR: I’m thinking death is a natural process.

NB: I want to die in my bed; that’s why I’m doing this. I’ve worked with a lot of people who had cancer. After I healed myself from ovarian cancer years ago, I had a little tumour on my breast and everyone was freaking out around me, including my son. Everybody wanted me to remove it. Even people who were macrobiotic for a long time said to at least have a biopsy and so forth. But I decided to put my money where my mouth was and I did what I’ve been telling you. I sat down with the food and chewed it and ate on time. It’s not really a diet. It’s an understanding because eventually you develop a certain philosophy of what your body needs and as you age your body refines. It’s not the same food all the time. And you make these decisions; I know if I have a piece of salmon, I can’t fall asleep or if I eat it at night, I’m sluggish in the morning. If I have some coffee I’ll be hyper.

JR: Do you work with acupressure?

NB: Shiatsu is part of macrobiotics and oriental medicine. I’ve also learned acupuncture and something called Do-In, which is like a self-massage exercise that you do in the morning that activates all the systems.

JR: Do you ever do public talks?

NB: I do a lot of one-on-one teaching. The level you are at is what you have to address. The person I’m cooking for now is very sentimental. I’m cooking for him because I can see the condition and I’m good at what I do. I’m cooking for what he needs in order to work, for endurance. I don’t cook for the way I think macrobiotic is. I cook for what he needs because I can see him.

We have to try and inspire the ones who are going to rebuild a better world. When I started in LA, there were only two health food stores. There was nothing organic. I’m so proud because I’ve participated in all this. Macrobiotic is everywhere. I’ve given time, money and sweat for free to help in this world and all we are here for is to give. That’s all.